Gulf Breeze principal charged with prescription fraud

Wednesday

Jul 26, 2017 at 1:25 PMJul 26, 2017 at 1:25 PM

Gulf Breeze High School Principal Sean Tomey said his pain has increased over the last couple years without any answer from doctors and that he has become addicted to pain medication, according to police reports.

Staff report

GULF BREEZE — A Gulf Breeze High School administrator was arrested last week after handing over a fraudulent prescription for narcotics, lawmen say.

According to an offense report from Gulf Breeze Police Department, officers were dispatched to the Neighborhood Walmart Pharmacy in reference to a fraudulent prescription.

The pharmacy technician said on July 11, 43-year-old Sean Patrick Tomey turned in a fraudulent prescription for 120 tablets of 50-miligram Tramadol. The technician said she discovered the prescription was fraudulent when she received a call from Dr. Buchalter's office at Gulf Coast Pain Institute stating the office did not give the prescription to Tomey. The prescription already had been filled by the time the pharmacy realized it was fraudulent, the report said.

The technician also stated Tomey had a different prescription from July 5 for 90 tablets of 10-miligram Percocet that also was fraudulent.

The prescriptions also were submitted at the CVS store at 225 Gulf Breeze Parkway. The pharmacist there told police he immediately recognized the scripts to be fake because it was not a blue script paper and appeared to have a photocopied signature. After the pharmacist inquired about the script, Tomey "calmly grabbed the paper script and walked out of CVS," the report said.

On July 20, Gulf Breeze police obtained a statement from Gulf Coast Pain Institute that said the prescriptions that were passed at local pharmacies were not filled by Dr. Buchalter's office.

Officers went to Tomey's home about 11:15 a.m. and arrested him. During initial questioning, Tomey denied any wrongdoing and said Dr. Buchalter's office prescribed those items, the report said.

When evidence of the fraudulent scripts was presented to him, Tomey then admitted to creating the false prescriptions on his laptop. He said his pain has increased over the last couple years without any answer from doctors and that he has become addicted to pain medication. He said he did not know what else to do to help himself.

Tomey is the assistant principal of guidance at Gulf Breeze High School.

Tomey was charged with two counts of passing a forged prescription and one count of fraud. He was released from Santa Rosa County Jail after posting bond.